


Creating What We Can't Reverse

by taormina



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Hurt Q, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of Death and Violence, Q likes stargazing, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taormina/pseuds/taormina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q’s soul broke into a million pieces when he killed that man, that stranger. </p><p>Then Bond showed up and put him back together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creating What We Can't Reverse

Bond found Q seated in a chair out on the balcony. He was still in the bloodied jumper Bond had last seen him in, a grim reminder of what had occurred. His bedsheets were in a mess on the floor, and his food that room service delivered five hours ago was still untouched. Nothing was as it should be.

‘It’s a bit cold to be out here,’ Bond said once he’d pushed open the glass door to the balcony and stepped outside. The wintry cold penetrated the fabric of his clothes immediately, and he selfishly hoped Q was feeling cold too so they might go back inside and warm up. He pointed at one of the empty chairs on the balcony. ‘Do you mind?’

‘The stars are out tonight,’ Q said absently, legs pulled up toward his chest. He had not looked at Bond yet. ‘Have you ever tried stargazing in London? It’s virtually impossible. There’s so much noise and interference, like wading through Moneypenny’s e-mails in the morning. I’ve told her to stop sending me so many bloody messages, but she’s very insistent. I’ve told her she could also text, but M believes it’s unprofessional. I think he would rather we go back to sending each other classified telegrams.’ He said all of this so quickly that he had hardly paused for breath when he added, ‘Did you see that?’

‘See what?’ Bond had helped himself to a chair. He and Q were sitting next to each other now, albeit an arm’s length away. _Too_ far away.

Q pushed up his glasses. Whatever he’d seen, it was doing an excellent job at stopping Q from looking at Bond still. ‘There, in the sky.’

Bond looked. He saw nothing. ‘I see a lot of stars.’

‘ _Oh._ ’

Bond glanced sideways at Q. Hugging his legs tight, chin resting on his knees, Q looked almost like a child, a sombre, heartbroken child who was just looking at some stars because it was easier than going back inside and return to whatever was keeping him up at night. In the dark – without the room next door’s television casting a flickering light onto the balcony’s ceiling, and with currently no cars travelling to and fro in the distance –, he might have. But Q’s face looked hardened with that bruise on his cheek and dirt still clinging to his jumper, and he looked older than Bond had ever seen him.

‘Have you had a shower?’ Bond asked Q softly. He didn’t look like he had. He hadn’t even washed the blood off his fingers. Then again, perhaps he had and it’d stayed there, like a smear of permanent marker on a brand new table; an eternal reminder of what had occurred.

‘I’m quite fond of stars,’ Q said, in that same, faraway voice of before, ‘they’re like obscure messages in code, don’t you think? You can spend hours looking at the night sky and not see anything, only to find out a fragment of a second later that you’ve not been looking correctly.’ He moved his right hand to the back of his head and unconsciously pulled at his dark, dirty hair. ‘I feel like that a lot today. Like I’m one step behind on everyone else and I just can’t figure out what everyone’s speaking about. Why they all look at me with pity.’

It broke Bond’s heart to see Q so hurt. He was doing a marvellous job at hiding it, but could Q not see that he didn’t have to?

He and Q never really talked about how they felt. Bond didn’t because that’s just how he is, and Q didn’t because he didn’t have to. He wasn’t the person who had to call the shots. He was always safe behind his stickered laptop and cups of tea. The biggest thing Q had to worry about, Bond knew, was who was going to feed the cats if he had to work late. Bond and Q never discussed their feelings because there wasn’t a single reason why they should.

But they did that day.

Bond made a movement to rest his hand on Q’s shoulder, but Q flinched and made himself even smaller than before.

‘Q, we need to talk about this.’

‘We’ve already been debriefed, 007.’

‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’

‘We’re in Austria. And it’s snowing, if you hadn’t noticed,’ Q said, a small, incredulous smile playing on his lips. A second later, the smile died. He looked grave and anxious.

Still, they were looking at each other again.

Bond didn’t even think they’d ever get that far.

The men sat in silence as they watched, indeed, tiny fluffs of snow fluttering down the night sky. It made Q think of lonely Christmases. It reminded Bond of lonely assignments spent on snowy mountaintops.

When Bond blinked, the snow had stopped. Back were the stars, sparkling in and out of existence behind passing snow clouds.

‘I don’t understand how you can do this job and not constantly lose parts of yourself,’ Q pondered. He was looking towards the sky again, at a lost snowflake or planet or star that Bond couldn’t see or didn’t want to. ‘Does it never make you think about the insignificance of life? The things you do?’

‘Never my own,’ Bond admitted.

‘Then whose?’

‘Others’. The lives of the people I’m trying to protect. Yours.’

Q laughed disbelievingly. Still sitting with his legs pulled up, he rubbed his arms as if he were cold. Bond wished he could embrace him and make the cold go away. He wished he’d held him after the things they’d been through. Held him until backup showed up and guided them both back to safety — but he hadn’t. He didn’t know how to. ‘You weren’t trying to protect _me_ ,’ Q said.

Bond said nothing as he watched Q struggle to keep his eyes open.

He _did_ try to protect Q. Why else would he chase after him? To settle a score? To win back intel that had been compromised from the start? Because he felt like it? No — he did it because he was terrified of the one thing he cared about disappearing, of it burning out like one of Q’s stars.

He could see Q drifting back into a melancholic mood, so he brushed his fingers against Q’s thigh. Q started, but not as much as the first time.

‘I wish you’d leave, 007.’

Bond didn’t bother arguing that he wasn’t going anywhere. He pointed at a random star. ‘What can you tell me about that one?’

Q breathed a quick sigh of vexation but followed Bond’s pointing finger anyway. There was a cut on his lip. One under his eye, too, hidden away behind his glasses. Judging by his languid movements, he was bruised and hurt underneath his clothes. Surprisingly, his glasses were still intact. Q hadn’t bothered cleaning the dust off of them.

‘Which one?’

‘That one.’

‘There are dozens of them,’ Q said, exasperated not because of his depression but because of Bond’s foolishness. ‘You need to be a bit more specific than that.’

‘I mean _that_ one.’

Q blinked. ‘That’s a satellite, 007.’

Whenever Bond looked at Q, he could still hear his screams, those icy, heartbreaking screams that bore through his eardrums like nails upon chalk. He had to watch while someone punched and kicked and spat on Q, so poor and innocent, and Bond would have given up the intel for him in a heartbeat, he really would — but he couldn’t. He didn’t have it on him. He begged and pleaded far beyond his dignity, but the kicking went on long after Q had been knocked unconscious.

Bond was glad that Q shot the bastard.

‘Don’t you know anything about astronomy?’ Q said.

‘I don’t see the point.’

‘What if you get lost?’

Bond was silent. Then, ‘I’ll have you. I’ll always have you.’

‘All I do is make inventions and point and click whenever a door needs opening,’ Q said, more out of sadness than modesty. ‘That’s hardly helpful.’

That’s not what it looked like when he and Bond spent their first day together, in that cell, when plans for their escape were being created dozens at a time.

That’s when Bond had last seen him. _His_ Q, not the one burdened by what he’s seen.

‘It is to me,’ Bond said, and to his surprise, Q didn’t flinch when he brushed the hair off his forehead. There was another cut on his temple, and for a time Bond considered kissing it better. ‘Did no-one offer to take you to hospital?’

Bond’s thumb brushed Q’s cheek, and the younger man’s eyes fluttered closed. When Q opened his eyes again, his voice sounded different than before. ‘I politely declined.’

‘Why?’ Q exhaled sharply when one of Bond’s fingers touched a sore spot, so he let his hands drop onto his lap. ‘Sorry,’ he added.

A subtle flush of red had spread over Q’s cheeks. ‘Hospitals always make me feel like something is wrong with me,’ he admitted sadly. He pulled at the ends of his sleeves so that his bruised hands were covered. ‘I wasn’t willing to admit to that yet, that I cannot close my eyes without seeing the life of a man whose name I didn’t know fade out until all that’s left is blood on the wall.’

The words left a nasty pang in Bond’s stomach, and he wanted to do nothing more than kiss Q until he felt better. He wasn’t stupid; he knew it would likely take Q weeks, months to give this a place in that neatly compartmentalized mind of his. It wasn’t going to be easy, and Bond was under no illusion that it’d take a couple of therapy sessions and everything would be all right. Q might not be all right ever again.

But he wanted to be there for him, if he could. If Q let him.

The guests next door turned off their television. The reds and blues of the film they were watching were no longer projected onto the underside of the above floor. The only light that remained was that of the clear sky. A speck of slow-moving light suddenly appeared and rose up a hill or mountainside like a little firefly — only to disappear behind a tree moments later.

Bond almost felt guilty for having left that cellar unscathed.

It’s not as though he didn’t feel the pain from the past few day’s torture, he _did_ — but how could he still feel the soreness of his legs or the aching pain in his neck when Q looked so lost and hurt? He didn’t have the right.

‘I know we don’t really _do_ serious conversations, but you can tell me everything, Q,’ Bond offered. ‘ _Everything_.’

There was that pulling down of sleeves again. That look, so faraway due to the images sketched onto his mind’s eye.

Bond was starting to think they’d never have this conversation until Q suddenly turned upon him.

‘Do you ever think about seeking redemption?’ he said.

‘For the sins that I’ve committed? No.’

‘Don’t you think that sounds like the type of man who doesn’t even consider his deeds to be sins?’ Again, there was that hint of the old Q: always seeking answers, always being stubborn. Pushing Bond’s buttons because he was the only person who could.

‘They’re not sins when you get paid for them.’

‘That doesn’t justify them.’

‘It does when your life depends on it,’ Bond said purposefully.

Q swallowed. ‘You really believe that?’

Bond knew his words had made an impact in the way Q was looking at him, all sad and full of regret and worlds removed from the man that Bond loved. He wished he hadn’t said them, but what point was there discussing this if he wasn’t being frank? What point was there in loving Q if they couldn’t talk about things that mattered? Q had changed today. Bond knew, because _he_ had when he put someone down for the first time. How could he not?

But that was the difference between him and Q: Bond had to do it over and over again until it was part of his job description. He’d gotten used to being surrounded by death until there was very little life left in him.

He hoped Q never would, but the world looks different once you leave six dead men behind in a cell.

He and Q spent the first day in their cell discussing ideas. There was even talk of using an exploding watch at one point; Q was still present mentally that day. The next day, they mostly bickered. By the time they’d missed the sunrise for the third time, they hardly spoke. Q had grown some stubble. Bond didn’t even think he could. The next day, Q was beaten up and punched until there was nothing of the old Q left. That was the worst moment of all.

On the fifth day, their rescue came in the shape of an inexperienced handler. Bond attacked him. There was a struggle, reinforcements were called, and Bond managed to knock all of them unconscious. Then a sixth man leapt out of the shadows, and Q shot him dead with a gun on the floor.

His first kill.

Bond could still see the look in his eyes.

‘Your life depended on it, Q,’ Bond reiterated. ‘You had no other choice.’

‘Is that what you tell yourself before going to bed every night? Is that how you repent?’ Q said softly. A single tear rolled down his cheek. He quickly wiped it off with the back of his hand. ‘This is all my fault. If I hadn't come here, none of this would have happened and we'd all be better off.’

None of this would have happened if Bond had protected Q like he promised. Bond knew Q's laptop contained sensitive information, and yet he let him out of his sight. He let Q out of his sight for an hour or less, and when he came back to the hotel Q's room had already been overturned. The laptop lay broken in pieces on the floor. There was blood on the curtains. A maid had been killed. He could still smell the alcohol on himself, a stark reminder of his guilt. Q was gone.

Bond didn't stop to call for backup.

Q went on, apropos of nothing, ‘I always assumed that if I were killed I'd die having done my job. I'd die, and that would be it, wouldn't it? I'd have done so in the name of MI6. But then you come back from the afterlife and you realize that none of the intel you were suffering to protect was of any importance. That you killed a man over something so incredibly insignificant.’ Q’s hands were shaking. They did when he picked up the gun and they hadn't stopped shaking ever since. ‘What if he had a family? What if he had someone to come home to? Do you ever think about that?’

‘Men like that rarely do.’

‘How on Earth can you be so sure?’ Bond could hear the pent-up anger in Q’s voice.

Q spent the entire trip back to a second hotel not talking to anyone. Bond had to speak for him during their debriefing. When the meeting was over, Q excused himself and left. Bond hadn’t seen him until tonight. He should’ve come earlier.

‘Because it’s easier to risk your life when you don’t have a family to come back home to.’

Q laughed weakly, and more tears ran down his cheeks. He didn’t bother wiping them off. ‘And here I was thinking you didn’t have a girlfriend because no woman is foolish enough.’ ’

Q looked at Bond, thoroughly expecting him to make a sarcastic comeback — but he didn’t; Bond remained uncharacteristically quiet until he said, very softly, ‘That’s not the reason either, Q.’

The blood on Q’s lip glistened when he parted his lips into the start of a word, then closed his mouth again when the penny dropped. ‘Oh.’

‘You asked me why I came back to save you,’ Bond said. ‘That’s why. And I’m okay with your actions, Q; I just need you to be okay with mine.’ As these words left his mouth, his fingers had laced Q’s. Q’s hand felt rough and bruised and bloodied, but it fitted perfectly in his. _They_ – he and Q – fitted perfectly, for in that moment, on a hotel balcony somewhere in Austria, all the pent-up emotions came pouring out. Q didn’t require hospital visits or agents debriefing him: what he needed, more than anything, was _him_ , and his hands to hold.

‘I can’t sleep, James,’ Q admitted suddenly, and a sob rocked his body. More tears ran across the broken surface of his skin. ‘How can I go back to bed, knowing — what I’ve done? How—’

Q shivered, inconsolably, until Bond hugged him as tight as Q’s small, aching frame allowed him. Very gently and carefully Q wrapped his arms around Bond’s strong body, and Bond didn’t even care that he smelled of blood and sweat and that his cheek felt rugged against his — Q was here with him. Safe, and alive. One day, they’d be doing this again under different circumstances.

‘Shh, it’s okay. I’m here, Q.’

Bond kissed Q’s bruises until they were both finally unafraid to go back to bed.


End file.
